Three Trials Read online

  I grin, liking Lamar a little more now, as I wink at the guys.

  “He’s saying you’re pretty because I’m shallow.” I rock backwards on my heels, clasping my hands in front of me. “You’re welcome,” I add.

  I even sit down in a chair like a dainty little girl in my devilish attire.

  “You’re saying we died, but she brought us back as mortals, handpicked how we’d come back, and somehow managed to offer us immortality without us having to turn our souls over to hell and risk a harsher internal balance,” Kai states like Lamar has just crossed a line of nonsense.

  I understand none of this, but I keep listening in, weaving together what I can, and quietly threading my own conclusion one piece at a time.

  “She kept history from repeating itself. Made you mentally stronger this way. But I don’t know how she did it. It’s as though your souls were stolen, swiped clean, restrung with the first breath of life, and now you’re all back together again. I’m not even sure how you found each other if you didn’t know all this,” Lamar goes on.

  “The bond drew us together,” Jude tells him, frowning. “Like all quads.”

  “Certainly not like all quads. You’re the first. The rest are all poor-man’s copies—a cosmic echo of sorts. There’s never been a bond as strong as yours. Trust me. They’ve been hoping to find your replacements for centuries. Manella hid you, because we both saw the enigmas you were—no deaths, yet pure immortals? Impossible. And only Paca aimed for the impossible.”

  He clears his throat, his eyes seeming a little misty. “However, we didn’t wholly believe you were them, if I’m being honest. It’s painful to get one’s hopes up. But we liked the hope it offered, so we hid you, pretending as though we were playing Paca’s or your game. Lucifer isn’t aware of that, of course. But we knew if you wanted in, you’d eventually let us know…but we thought you had your memories.”

  No one seems to know what to believe. This time, standing on their side of things as someone you aren’t sure if you can trust, even though they’re begging you to follow them out onto a treacherous ledge as they twist everything you thought you knew into something impossibly possible…I suddenly get it.

  I just finally proved myself to them. It took dying to get all four, but at least I didn’t stay dead. Again. I doubt Lamar would be willing to go to the same extremes I have.

  “Lucifer knows it’s you now, though. Surely you realize that,” Lamar tells them. “He’s waiting on you to come explain yourselves. He all but called you out before the trials. He designed that course to be identical to the course Paca gave Nicholai on the last birthday she got to celebrate with him,” he goes on.

  I look around at the four of them. “Which one of you is Nicholai?”

  “Nicholai?” Jude asks him, sounding as annoyed with him as he sometimes gets with me.

  “I…uh…Famine,” Lamar says uneasily.

  “Gage,” I whisper softly, remembering the way his eyes lit up when I accused him of actually enjoying the danger and unpredictability that course played with life and death.

  Everyone in the room stills.

  “I’ve said something that has finally jarred a memory?” Lamar asks hopefully.

  “Not one from the life you’re saying we had,” Kai tells him vaguely.

  “Look, there’s no way you could have survived that course without remembering those riddles and having a great deal of prior knowledge of hell. Paca was there telling you the riddles and offering hints to the answers when you struggled the first time,” he tells them.

  My stomach coils with dread.

  I started giving hints by the end…

  Ezekiel’s eyes meet mine as though the same thing pops into his mind.

  “And the very last riddle alone is enough to squash any remaining doubts,” Lamar continues, not realizing he’s finally gotten us all to take him a little seriously.

  I’m not even making jokes right now.

  “How do you defeat a never-ending army of hell’s most vicious predators, cast to the belly straight from the throat, when there’s not enough power to kill them all?” Ezekiel says, echoing the question he once asked me.

  He actually asked two of the riddles while we were down there like he’d figured the right questions out on his own. His nightmares also happen to be the worst.

  “No,” Lamar says, shaking his head. “How would Paca face a never-ending army of hell’s most vicious predators, to the belly straight from the throat, when there’s not enough power to kill them all?” he corrects. “She’s rather vain that way.”

  To this, a few snorts sneak out, and I flip them off as they regain their composure quickly.

  Lamar grins knowingly. “But the answer is true regardless. She’d set her mind on a solution and faced it as she did absolutely everything in life. Fearlessly.”

  A little chill slithers up my spine, and I lose my ability to be inappropriately humorous, and allow for a moment of dread to settle in.

  As he warned, I’ve been cataloguing every bit of information, adding it to all of this I’ve just learned. I don’t like the riddle before me, because I hate the answer I’ve concluded.

  It simply sounds crazy, and I can’t even bring myself to actually think it.

  “Tell him I’m terrified of mountainsides, firefalls, and now most definitely swords,” I say on a rasp whisper, causing Jude to noticeably flinch with that newest addition. “Which means he’s wrong. Tell him that. Now. Or I’ll turn whole and tell him myself.”

  Ezekiel gives me a puzzled look, but it’s because he can’t hear the thoughts hovering in my mind. The ones I’m forcing to stay back.

  “She’s terrified of hanging from mountainsides and firefalls,” Gage says, moving closer to my side.

  Lamar gives him a watery grin.

  “She actually has some of the most random, irrational fears. It’s the things that actually require bravery that make her serious and fearless. And it’s good she’s not always that way. The intensity of those moments…the pure, determined, fearless, selfless way she makes the impossible happen…those are the times she made all of you fall in love with her over and over and over again. If she was that way all the time, Hera would lose her title as the world’s best seductress, because Paca would be the only one considered irresistible.”

  “Sounds like I need to be more serious on occasion then,” I say too quickly, trying too hard to lighten this moment, and finding it to fall flat because I can’t even pretend that I’m not terrified of where he’s going with this.

  “How could she do all this?” Gage asks obliviously. “What do you mean over and over?”

  “In all your mortal lives,” he says, smiling grimly. “I’m just realizing she would have taken that gift from you. It was a game to see if you could fall in love in every life, and you always did. All of you fell in love with her, and she fell in love with all of you. It should have been impossible.”

  I swallow thickly.

  “You’d just finished a mortal life—the five of you always died together.” He clears his throat, smiling tightly. “I’ll tell her more when she shows herself to me.”

  “To go back and live mortal lives, you have to be royalty or blessed by royalty,” Jude argues.

  Kai glances down at me, almost as though he’s searching my eyes for something.

  “To create an obstacle course in hell’s belly just for her current favorite’s birthday would also imply royalty,” Lamar states, causing me to freeze.

  “What did you just say?” Gage asks, looking at Lamar. “Her current favorite?”

  “Her favorite constantly changed. It was a game you five played. It kept things from going stale. But you were always her favorite on your respective birthdays. After all, she was reasonable, as I said.”

  Kai’s lips tug in a grin.

  “This is not a grinning time. You have terrible timing for humor,” I tell him, looking back at Lamar.

  “She could send you back for mortal lives
because she gave you each a piece of her balance and broke every law when she did it. But as I said, she never cared much for rules. In doing so, she made all of you stronger. And she saved your lives back then. Dragged you all from imbalance’s insanity and did what had never been done before in accomplishing it. She saved your lives the first time she met you, and you all saved each other over and over. But this last time, she truly died. Or so we all thought. I’m wondering if it was just the bond that managed to pull her together and allow her to defy the impossible once again.”

  They all just stare at him until they look right at me like they finally understand what’s going on.

  “He’s trying to say I’m the Devil’s daughter, isn’t he?” I ask them, shaking my head. “But there are only six,” I remind them. “Only two of them are girls.”

  “Yeah, but the twins could count as one,” Kai says, as though he’s considering it.

  “I know they can count as one, but they don’t because five would be an imbalance so they have to count as two,” I argue, then frown at knowing that since I don’t know how I know it, and since it sort of confuses me. Shaking my head, I go on. “Four boys and three girls would still be an imbalance, because there would be seven heirs instead of six, and the gender would then have to be the balance.”

  “She’s right. That would be four boys and three girls even if the twins did count as one,” Ezekiel agrees.

  Good job.

  Though now I’m simply more confused.

  “He’s my favorite now just because he’s got my back,” I whisper almost silently. “Like baby got back kind of back.”

  He just shakes his head, cursing as he leans up.

  “Did I use it wrong?”

  My question goes unanswered as Jude once again huffs. “No one has ever considered the sexes to be a part of the balance before. It’s been four boys and two girls for a very long time. Pretty sure they’re men and women by now,” Jude says in his overly sarcastic tone.

  “The sexes and numbers are even. Three females and three males,” Lamar says conversationally, as though he’s simply reminding us of something. “When all heirs are in hell, the twins count as one person—one male—with their yin and yang balance. They only count as two when influencing, since they have two separate dark influences. All the heirs have their own dark influence—hence the seven deadly sins.”

  “What?” Jude asks on a breath.

  Lamar’s eyes widen, and he tightens his lips. “Only the royal family and closest lovers are to know some of that. There’s a vow of death. You make a deal with the Devil to be allowed so close to the royals and inner knowledge of their balances.”

  It’s like he’s reminding us of an oath we took that still binds today, even though we don’t remember taking it.

  “He’s all gibberish and nonsense,” I argue, shaking my head emphatically. “I want to go.”

  “We can’t go until we find out if he’s lying or not,” Ezekiel states quietly.

  “You’re having to convince her she’s Lucifer’s youngest daughter, aren’t you?” Lamar asks, grinning like he’s amused. “I can’t help but wonder what she was thinking when she did all of this. Clearly she planned for a true death to have made this happen. The bond alone couldn’t have accomplished quite this much. You’re the only ones who can see or hear her.”

  “Can’t he see I’m trying to talk myself off a ledge here?” I ask them incredulously. “I can’t be Lucifer’s daughter. That would make me way older than the nineties, first off, and the nineties is the main source of my ingrained information. Not hell politics. You guys are centuries old, which means we would have had to die long before the nineties. He’s wrong.”

  “Why would she be rambling about the nineties if what you’re saying is true?” Kai finally asks him.

  Lamar’s eyes water as though Kai’s just asked him something very personal that has made him emotional.

  “We can see a lot of the future. The human future, that is. We spent centuries perfecting our nineties slang,” the watery-eyed man says very quietly.

  “Not quite perfected even after all that,” Jude says as he looks back at me, smirking. Then gives his serious face back to Lamar.

  “She and I made a pact that we’d go mortal in the nineties. She wanted to be a dancing pop singer, and knew you four would end up her backup dancers or a boy band.”

  I’m so stunned that I can even recycle my One Erection joke.

  Lamar continues speaking when no one says anything, and the guys just stare at him like he’s lost his damn mind for suggesting such a horrible thing. They’d be an adorable boy band.

  “She wanted to read about the scandal later when she had all her memories and her body back, and like always, you’d all sit around basking in how you fell in love again, even though you had no idea who you were in that time. I was going to become a politician, because we both knew Manella would go if I went, and we’d fall in love there. He’d never gone mortal before, but promised me he would in the nineties. It would have been a helluva scandal for us to enjoy upon our return.”

  “Did he go?” I ask, feeling my heart hurt a little for no really good reason.

  “Why would she—”

  “Did he go?” I ask louder, talking over Jude, who looks at me like I’m going crazy.

  “Did you go?” Kai asks him on a sigh.

  Lamar’s jaw trembles and he clears his throat while blinking and looking away. “It didn’t seem right to go without her.”

  Deflated, I sit back.

  “I believe him,” I say quietly. “I’m the Devil’s daughter with a horribly non-badass name like Paca. Who names hell spawn something that bubbly? I’m not bubbly at all.”

  “What’s she saying that has all of you looking at me like you want to do harm?” Lamar asks, frowning.

  “We’re trying to decide if you’re lying or not. She believes you. It’s not going to be good if you’re fucking with us,” Ezekiel drawls, looking at his nails as though he’s bored.

  “Touching her seems to amplify our powers,” Jude goes on, his hand slipping through mine. “Supposedly I’m Death.”

  Lamar slides off the desk slowly, so as not to make any sudden movements.

  “Paca, I know you’re probably overwhelmed if you prevented yourself from remembering all this for whatever reason. But trust me when I say we’ll figure all this out together. You sought me out in hell’s throat. I spent five years convincing myself it was not you I kept feeling, because it was impossible. Then I felt you. Then they said she, and I finally knew we’d been right. They were yours and you were back.”

  Just feeling their tingles start to surround me helps. Kai and Gage are also touching me. It’s Ezekiel I’m worried about. He’s not touching me, and he looks much too calm for the embodiment of war who got used to peaceful sleep, only to have it ripped away from him for over a month.

  He’s the one who might actually kill Lamar before I can decide how I feel about him.

  “Lucifer knows. He knew even before I did. I told you that. The trials were just him throwing it in your face that he knew so you’d stop pretending you all weren’t back. He figured it out months ago as his madness continued to lift the closer to hell she got. Manella told me this just after the night Lucifer exonerated me—the night his lucidity completely returned. You know the Devil’s games…I would have told you sooner, but I thought I was playing your game, even as it hurt my feelings to be left out.”

  Looking betrayed makes a little sense, if we really were besties.

  “Is that why he tried killing us?” Jude asks, a lethal, hard edge to his tone as he takes a step away. “Because of him, she was killed a month ago.”

  Never mind about Ezekiel. Jude’s the one to worry about now. He’s the one who watched me die, and then kissed me for the first time when I came back because I wasn’t dead.

  Very hard man to impress, that one.

  “And all along he could have healed her? Did he know she would
n’t really die?” Gage asks with an eerily calm tone.

  Shit. Now he’s the one who might kill him.

  “Kai, please just stay behind me. I need some tingles, and Lamar has enough of—”

  Before I can finish the sentence, Kai is holding a sword under Lamar’s chin, appearing there in less than an instant. Now he really might kill Lamar too. Damn it.

  “Move and I’ll do worse than cut you. Answer the questions,” he growls. “Did he kill her just to punish us for not properly playing a game we had no idea we were even playing? A royal fucking escort killed her.”

  Lamar glances at him, not moving anything other than his eyes.

  “No. There are always rebels in hell. It’s hell, after all. Rebellions spring up like weeds. We’re stifled by the volume in this particular rebellion, since Lucifer has been decommissioned for so long with your dead girlfriend’s father in his ear. At least we assume it’s him, due to her involvement in the botched assassination attempt on your lives. You were just caught in the crosshairs. Apparently we’re not the only ones who’ve noticed Paca back. And the Devil’s youngest daughter back from a true death and back to reign with her four unstoppable horsemen? I thought the five of you were playing a very dangerous game.”

  “Rebels. Really? Rebels are trying to kill us and not Lucifer? I don’t know what to believe,” I grumble. “His timing is just terribly suspicious.”

  They all give me a look, as though they’re exasperated with me for saying that, considering I heard that from them quite a lot when I first popped up, and I held it against them.

  “I do believe I’m the Devil’s daughter, though. Oh, and in case this was the only thing still holding you back, it’s become abundantly clear I’m most definitely, without a doubt, unquestionably not a virgin.”

  Kai turns and tosses the sword down like he’s frustrated, while Jude just huffs.

  “On a related note, my vagina is most decidedly evil, so you win that argument after all,” I add.

  “For fuck’s sake, Paca!” Kai gripes, saying the new name with ease like it’s perfectly natural. “Just take this seriously for a damn second. Do you have any idea what he’s saying?!”